Sculptures made of cans offer creative solutions for hungry New Yorkers

A design competition is hoping to feed over one million hungry New Yorkers in a creative way this Thanksgiving season. Canstruction, the annual competition challenges designers, architects and engineers to build giant sculptures out of unopened cans of food.

"Canstruction, this is our 25th year. It was founded by the Society for Design Administration," said Jennifer Greene, founding member of Canstruction New York.

"We actually borrowed this idea from the Seattle chapter, they had built the Space Needle out of cans and we thought, 'oooh, let's do Canstruction,' and that's how it became. And that was 25 years ago."

This year 27 teams transformed about 80,000 cans into gravity-defying masterpieces, such as dice, a giant lotus flower, Pac-Man, and an 8-foot by 8-foot pineapple structure. The contest's top honor, the "Best Meal" award, will be given out on November 6.

"We donate the food to City Harvest and one in four New Yorkers are hungry, which is sad," said Greene. "So our food will feed 45,000 families, but that's like a drop in the bucket for New Yorkers." Canstruction will be on display at Brookfield Place New York through Nov. 15.